Hi everyone! I am the infamous Charlene of the Journey/Jurney family. I started out knowing next to nothing about the Journey family. My great-grandmother was LAURAH BELLE JOURNEY HARRIS, wife of ROBERT M. HARRIS of Scott County. When I first started this research, that is allthe information I had, other than, according to Laurah back in the 40s (She died in 1942), there had been only one remaining relative. That was said to be either an Albert or an Arthur. (depending on who was telling the story!) I didn’t know if that was her father, brother, uncle or who it was. I didn’t even know where they came from, and no one still alive could tell me either. Some said they thought she was an orphan, or perhaps her father was an orphan. Well, I finally found the 1910 census of my great-grandparents at the genealogy library and it listed Laurah has having been born in Tennessee, as was her parents. I was going to the library (60 miles away) a couple of times a month to go through microfilms of census records, etc, but it was going really slow. Finally I found Delaine Edwards. Yay!! :) !! I requested lookups of all the Journey families from 1870. Nearly drove her crazy, I think, with all my requests. Anyway . . . to make a long story even longer . . . I went through all the Journeys, and found an Elijah F. Journey, who had a daughter Laura, and along with other children, a son named Albert. That had to be it. The only two names I knew. It just had to be!! Then Delaine found Elijah’s obituary and it told where he had come from . . . Maury County, Tennessee, and that he had been in the Confederate Army. That was the start of finding out all kinds of "neat stuff." Next library visit I looked in the 1860 census and found a Nathaniel Journey (only it was spelled Jurney) who had a son called Elijah. I found someone on the Internet to look up Elijah’s Civil War record and got information about him. So this is some of what I know. (You didn't have anything else to do today, right? :D) Here are the JOURNEY/JURNEY (it is spelled both ways) families as I know it right now. NATHANIEL T. JOURNEY was born in Virginia about 1811. His wife’s name was MAHALA and she was born in Tennessee in 1816. It is possible that Nathaniel’s father was named WILLIAM JOURNEY. They lived in the 24th District of Maury County, Tennessee in the 1860 and 1870 census. There were five sons, EMANUEL (1835), JOHN (1838), ELIJAH (1840)my great-great grandfather, JAMES P.(1842) and SAMUEL (1845) and one daughter, ELLEN (1853). By 1870, some were married. EMANUEL JOURNEY - VIRGINIA (EVANS?). ELIJAH F. JOURNEY - REBECCA C. (called DOLLIE). SAMUEL JOURNEY - CORDELIA. ELLEN JOURNEY - WILLIAM WATSON. JAMES P. JOURNEY - AMANDA J. GILLAM. I think at least three of the brothers moved to Scott County, AR around 1874 . . . Elijah, James and John. Both Elijah and James P. served in the 48th Tennessee Infantry of the Confederate Army. Some of the other brothers may have also fought in the Civil War. I don’t know yet. Dollie died in 1892 and Elijah remarried a Mrs. BELL GRAY. By 1920 there were only two Journeys in the census of Scott County: OMER (HOMER?) JOURNEY, grandson of James P. Journey, and a LYNN JOURNEY (I don’t know who she was.). LAURAH BELLE HARRIS was widowed by then and was not in the 1920 census. I don’t know where she was living at that time, but she was in Scott County at her death in 1942. I havn't found Nathaniel Journey’s father and mother as yet. Now you probably know more than you want to know about the Journeys. And there is a lot more. It would take pages, I’m afraid. I have to say it has been so exciting to find all this information about this family, plus details about the HARRIS family that I didn’t know, and info about another great-grandmother, MELVINA JONES and her background. As many of you know and have experienced, these ancestors become very real to you. And it seems to me, the more I learn, the more I want to know! I could not have done it so quickly, however, without the help of Delaine Edwards. She has been an angel. O:-) Charlene gwhstamp@presys.com ------------------------------